(1)The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time vs (9)Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars 2015
Results Semifinals ' Monday, December 14, 2015 Ulti's Analysis In wrestling, heel offense is designed to bring the crowd down so that when the babyface makes his comeback, the crowd cheers louder. Even the most insane of crowds, no matter the sport, doesn't cheer full volume for the entire sporting event. In wrestling, this is controlled with heel offense. After that ridiculous Melee/Undertale match, we needed to relax for 24 hours. Ocarina was nice enough to finally show off its monster side and give us exactly what we needed. Mario RPG made a great run this contest, but it didn't have a prayer of beating Ocarina in this match and everyone knew it. There was lot of rally spillover that caused meteoric vote totals early on in this match, which tricked some people into thinking Ocarina had a chance in the final, but it didn't take long for vote intake to drop through the floor. That alone should have clued people in that Ocarina was done next round, as if we didn't already have a contest loaded with evidence of this. There were only two noteworthy things about this match. One is just a funny little comparison that has no real basis on anything, though it does shine light onto the CT vs Ocarina match that everyone wants to see: http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1637-division-16-round-2-chrono-trigger-vs-super-mario-rpg The other, more important notation is that Ocarina scored a doubling in the semifinal. This was a good note for Ocarina to hang its hat on before getting absolutely smashed, and it shouldn't go ignored. Silly formats aside (ie, I only care about 1v1 matches), here is THE LIST™ of every match in a semifinal or final that was at least a doubling: http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1778-tournament-semifinal-link-vs-mega-man http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/2453-tournament-semifinal-the-legend-of-zelda-vs-metal-gear http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/6176-best-game-ever-day-40-semifinal-zelda-ocarina-of-time-vs The common denominator there is obvious, though I'm confident two of those matches were SFF beatings. And while I loved SMRPG's run, it clearly got this far because divisions 7 and 8 were both extremely weak. Any one of a dozen games could have also made this run, though it does not diminish the accomplishment. Had SMRPG been released in Europe, the case could be made that it's a top ten game on this site. As-is, it's probably in the 15-20 range. Ctes' Analysis It'd not that anybody was surprised at it, but could we possibly have a more boring semi-final that this? I mean, we knew it would be regardless of what game ended up here from the moment the bracket came out, but man. It makes the decision to cut the contest 6 days shorter by having two matches run at the same time in the division finals and quarterfinals even more stupid. I mean, this match would still be boring, but the decision was made so that the contest wouldn't lose its pace and we'd safe the standalone matches for when it truly mattered. Knowing about the spillover we had made the decision a pretty bad idea at first, but look at what's left! Allen lucked out that Melee apparently was a rally force, because when he made the decision both semifinals and the finals looked to be incredibly boring one-sided matches. Now just for the heck of it, let's look at what some of the matches that wasn't judged exiting enough for a standalone match. Chrono Trigger vs. Super Smash Bros. Melee Pokemon RBY vs. Undertale A Link to the Past vs. Majora's Mask Super Mario RPG vs. Resident Evil 4 Metal Gear Solid vs. Metal Gear Solid 3 Super Smash Bros. Melee vs. Final Fantasy VII Undertale vs. Super Mario 64 Super Mario RPG vs. Metal Gear Solid 3 Furthermore, Allen himself was excited for the Final Fantasy showdown, so it may as well be there. The Ocarina of Time matches are always boring and Skyrim vs. Super Mario 64 was so too, but otherwise we had a bunch of interesting stuff there. Really don't believe it was worth cutting the contest short six days. It's actually somewhat unfair to change the contest structure at this point too, because it might actually have changed people's predictions that certain games were up at the same time when they thought they wouldn't be. Especially when the payoff is just going on Christmas break six days earlier. This match though, had a full 24 hours of waiting for the inevitable utter destruction of the defending champion. It's the perfect ending to the story of the indie game that swallowed the contest little by little, though if you don't like rallies, it'd probably be far less painful having Ocarina of Time run into Undertale before the finale. Though when Ocarina of Time had a path that allowed it to double its semifinal opponent and have almost half the people predicting it to reach the finale, that's could have only been avoided if Undertale had been in the other half of the bracket. I'm pretty sure Ocarina of Time would've been favored way less to reach the finale in the other half. I mean, it would easily be the heavy favorite, but to win the contest, you gotta take some hot upsets and what is more hot than correctly picking the favorite to lose? Too bad all the games with such potential were in the other half I guess. Though before Undertale happened, it was a good idea to allow them to face each other before the Ocarina of Time loss, so no reason to complain about that. Successful allies are terribly hard to predict beforehand. Now, it has gotten its praise before, but Super Mario RPG deserves a final applause. Today, three games were left in the contest. The King of Rallies, The King of GameFAQs and Super Mario RPG. That's really impressive. My perspective is super unfair though. Not only is it unfair to other semifinalist, but Super Mario RPG also had the easiest quarter by miles. Let's look at the other three. I'm certain it would at least lose to the following games no matter how much bandwagon it had caught: Chrono Trigger Super Smash Bros. Melee Pokemon GSC Final Fantasy VI Final Fantasy VII Super Mario Bros. 3 Pokemon RBY Undertale Super Mario World Super Mario 64 A Link to the Past Super Metroid Majora's Mask And let's be honest, in a round 1 match, it probably also at least loses to these: Final Fantasy X Kingdom Hearts II Wind Waker Fallout 3 Skyrim Twilight Princess Final Fantasy IX Kingdom Hearts There are more that could possibly beat it, even if Super Mario RPG would be the favorite. You never know for sure, but I'd say it's likely to lose to all those and it's a lot, so it lucked out big time reached the semi-finals. That's the beauty of our contests though. If we created a 100% fair bracket where the top 16 would literally be the top 16, things would be a lot less boring. Despite ending in a very boring semifinal match, Super Mario RPG entertained us big time with a great run, where it redeemed the Mario franchise and the SNES alike. It was easily overshadowed by Undertale at the time of the match, but Super Mario RPG deserves a ton of recognition. Though not through Nintendo, Mario manages to snag a semifinal spot once again. With this match, the Year of SNES ended. Overall, a very beautiful for year for that console. I knew it has a special place in the place of gamers that were alive at its time and truthfully, some of the best games ever are on it, but I didn't expect it to be as successful this contest as it has been, where even its weakest games came fourth and looked great. Not a single SNES game looked bad, with perhaps only Final Fantasy IV not being remarkable. Such a fantastic year of the console, that despite how the bracket was constructed, it's really weird to believe that the SNES game that got the furthest was none other than Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. External Links * Match Updates * Oracle Match Results • 'Previous Match • Next Match Category:2015 Contest Matches